The GARDEN OF EDEN (Hebrew גַּן עֵדֶן, Gan ʿEḏen) or
often PARADISE is the biblical "garden of God", described most notably
in the
Book of Genesis chapters 2 and 3, and also in the Book of
Ezekiel . The "garden of God", not called Eden, is mentioned in
Genesis 13, and the "trees of the garden" are mentioned in
Ezekiel 31.
The
Book of Zechariah and the
Book of Psalms also refer to trees and
water in relation to the temple without explicitly mentioning Eden.

Traditionally, the favored derivation of the name "Eden" was from the
Akkadian edinnu, derived from a Sumerian word edin meaning "plain" or
"steppe". Eden is now believed to be more closely related to an
Aramaic root word meaning "fruitful, well-watered." Another
interpretation associates the name Eden with a Hebrew word for
"pleasure"; thus the
Douay-Rheims Bible in Genesis 2:8 has the wording
"And the Lord
God had planted a paradise of pleasure" (rather than "a
garden in Eden"). The Hebrew term is translated "pleasure" in Sarah's
secret saying in Genesis 18:12.

Much like records of the great flood, creation story and confusion of
languages, the story of Eden echoes the Mesopotamian myth of a king,
as a primordial man, who is placed in a divine garden to guard the
Tree of life . In the
Hebrew Bible ,
Adam and Eve are depicted as
walking around the
Garden of Eden naked due to their innocence. Eden
and its rivers may signify the real
Jerusalem , the Temple of Solomon
, or the
Promised Land . It may also represent the divine garden on
Zion , and the mountain of
God , which was also Jerusalem. The imagery
of the Garden, with its serpent and cherubs, has been compared to the
images of the Solomonic Temple with its copper serpent (the nehushtan
) and guardian cherubs.

And out of the ground made the Lord
God to grow every tree that is
pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the
midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil.
— Genesis 2:9

The man was free to eat from any tree in the garden except the tree
of the knowledge of good and evil . Last of all, the
God made a woman
(
Eve ) from a rib of the man to be a companion the man. In chapter
three, the man and the woman were seduced by the serpent into eating
the forbidden fruit , and they were expelled from the garden to
prevent them from eating of the tree of life , and thus living
forever. Cherubim were placed east of the garden, "and a flaming sword
which turned every way, to keep him away from the tree of life"
(Genesis 3:24).

Genesis 2:10–14 lists four rivers in association with the garden of
Eden:
Pishon ,
Gihon , the
Tigris , and the
Euphrates . It also refers
to the land of Cush —translated/interpreted as
Ethiopia , but
thought by some to equate to Cossaea, a Greek name for the land of the
Kassites . These lands lie north of
Elam , immediately to the east of
ancient Babylon, which, unlike Ethiopia, does lie within the region
being described. In
Antiquities of the Jews , the first-century
Jewish historian
Josephus identifies the
Pishon as what "the Greeks
called
Ganges " and the Geon (Gehon) as the
Nile .

EZEKIEL

Main article: Ezekiel\'s cherub in Eden

In
Ezekiel 28:12–19 the prophet
Ezekiel the "son of man" sets down
God's word against the king of Tyre: the king was the "seal of
perfection", adorned with precious stones from the day of his
creation, placed by
God in the garden of Eden on the holy mountain as
a guardian cherub. But the king sinned through wickedness and
violence, and so he was driven out of the garden and thrown to the
earth, where now he is consumed by God's fire: "All the nations who
knew you are appalled at you, you have come to a horrible end and will
be no more." (v.19).

According to Terje Stordalen, the Eden in
Ezekiel appears to be
located in Lebanon. "t appears that the Lebanon is an alternative
placement in Phoenician myth (as in Ez 28,13, III.48) of the Garden of
Eden", and there are connections between paradise, the garden of Eden
and the forests of Lebanon (possibly used symbolically) within
prophetic writings. Edward Lipinski and
Peter Kyle McCarter have
suggested that the
Garden of the gods (Sumerian paradise) , the oldest
Sumerian version of the Garden of Eden, relates to a mountain
sanctuary in the Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon ranges .

PROPOSED LOCATIONS

Map showing the rivers in the Middle East known in English as
the
Tigris and Euphrates. Map by
Pierre Mortier , 1700, based
on theories of
Pierre Daniel Huet , Bishop of Avranches. A caption in
French and Dutch reads: Map of the location of the terrestrial
paradise, and of the country inhabited by the patriarchs, laid out for
the good understanding of sacred history, by M. Pierre Daniel Huet.

Although the
Garden of Eden is considered to be mythological by most
scholars, there have been other suggestions for its location:
for example, at the head of the
Persian Gulf , in southern Mesopotamia
(now Iraq) where the
Tigris and
Euphrates rivers run into the sea; in
Iranian Azerbaijan, and in the vicinity of
Tabriz , and in the
Armenian Highlands or Armenian Plateau.

According to the Bible, the location of Eden is described in the Book
of Genesis, chapter 2, verses 10–14:

A river flowed from Eden to water the garden, and from there it
divided to make four streams.

The first is named the Pishon, and this winds all through the land of
Havilah where there is gold. The gold of this country is pure;
bdellium and cornelian stone are found there. The second river is
named the Gihon, and this winds all through the land of Cush. The
third river is named the Tigris, and this flows to the east of Ashur.
The fourth river is the Euphrates.

PARALLEL CONCEPTS

* The city of
Dilmun in the Sumerian mythological story of Enki and
Ninhursag is a paradisaical abode of the immortals, where sickness
and death were unknown.
* The garden of the
Hesperides in
Greek mythology was somewhat
similar to the Christian concept of the Garden of Eden, and by the
16th century a larger intellectual association was made in the Cranach
painting (see illustration at top). In this painting, only the action
that takes place there identifies the setting as distinct from the
Garden of the Hesperides, with its golden fruit.
* The Persian term "paradise " (Hebrew פרדס, pardes), meaning a
royal garden or hunting-park, gradually became a synonym for Eden
after c. 500 BCE. The word "pardes" occurs three times in the Old
Testament , but always in contexts other than a connection with Eden:
in the
Song of Solomon iv. 13: "Thy plants are an orchard (pardes) of
pomegranates, with pleasant fruits; camphire, with spikenard";
Ecclesiastes 2. 5: "I made me gardens and orchards (pardes), and I
planted trees in them of all kind of fruits"; and in
Nehemiah ii. 8:
"And a letter unto Asaph the keeper of the king's orchard (pardes),
that he may give me timber to make beams for the gates of the palace
which appertained to the house, and for the wall of the city." In
these examples pardes clearly means "orchard" or "park", but in the
apocalyptic literature and in the
Talmud "paradise" gains its
associations with the
Garden of Eden and its heavenly prototype, and
in the
New Testament "paradise" becomes the realm of the blessed (as
opposed to the realm of the cursed) among those who have already died,
with literary
Hellenistic influences.

OTHER VIEWS

JEWISH ESCHATOLOGY

In the
Talmud and the Jewish
Kabbalah , the scholars agree that
there are two types of spiritual places called "Garden in Eden". The
first is rather terrestrial, of abundant fertility and luxuriant
vegetation, known as the "lower Gan Eden". The second is envisioned as
being celestial, the habitation of righteous, Jewish and non-Jewish,
immortal souls, known as the "higher Gan Eden". The Rabbanim
differentiate between Gan and Eden.
Adam is said to have dwelt only in
the Gan, whereas Eden is said never to be witnessed by any mortal eye.

According to
Jewish eschatology , the higher Gan Eden is called the
"Garden of Righteousness". It has been created since the beginning of
the world, and will appear gloriously at the end of time. The
righteous dwelling there will enjoy the sight of the heavenly chayot
carrying the throne of God. Each of the righteous will walk with God,
who will lead them in a dance. Its Jewish and non-Jewish inhabitants
are "clothed with garments of light and eternal life, and eat of the
tree of life" (Enoch 58,3) near to
God and His anointed ones. This
Jewish rabbinical concept of a higher Gan Eden is opposed by the
Hebrew terms gehinnom and sheol , figurative names for the place of
spiritual purification for the wicked dead in Judaism, a place
envisioned as being at the greatest possible distance from heaven .

In modern
Jewish eschatology it is believed that history will
complete itself and the ultimate destination will be when all mankind
returns to the Garden of Eden.

ISLAMIC VIEW

Spanish-Arabic world map from 1109 CE with Eden in east (at top)

Events taking place in the
Garden of Eden are spoken about
prominently in the
Quran and the tafsir (interpretation). The term
"Jannāt `Adni" ("Gardens of Eden" or "Gardens of Perpetual
Residence") is used in the Qur'an for the destination of the
righteous. There are several mentions of "the Garden" in the Qur'an
(2:35, 7:19, 20:117), meaning the Garden of Eden, but without the word
"`Adn". There are other places that talk about events there, without
mentioning the location. This includes surat Sad , which features 18
verses on the subject (38:71–88), surat al-Baqarah , surat al-A\'raf
, and surat al-Hijr . The narrative mainly surrounds the resulting
expulsion of
Iblis from the garden and his subsequent tempting of Adam
and Eve. After
Iblis refuses to follow God's command to bow down to
Adam for being his greatest creation, Allah transforms him into Satan
as a punishment. Despite the Biblical account, the
Quran mentions only
one tree in Eden, the tree of immortality, which Allah specifically
claimed it was forbidden to
Adam and Eve. Despite this, however,
Satan, disguised as a serpent, repeatedly told
Adam to eat from the
tree, and eventually both
Adam and Eve did so, resulting in disobeying
Allah. These stories are also featured in the Islamic hadith
collections, including al-Tabari .

Numerous early leaders of the Church, including
Brigham Young , Heber
C. Kimball , and
George Q. Cannon , taught that the Garden of Eden
itself was located in nearby
Jackson County, Missouri , but there are
no surviving first-hand accounts of that doctrine being taught by
Joseph Smith himself. LDS doctrine is unclear as to the exact location
of the Garden of Eden, but tradition among Latter-Day Saints places it
somewhere in the vicinity of Adam-ondi-Ahman, or in Jackson County.

ART

Garden of Eden motifs most frequently portrayed in illuminated
manuscripts and paintings are the "Sleep of Adam" ("Creation of Eve"),
the "Temptation of Eve" by the Serpent, the "
Fall of Man " where Adam
takes the fruit, and the "Expulsion". The idyll of "Naming Day in
Eden" was less often depicted. Much of Milton\'s
Paradise Lost occurs
in the Garden of Eden.
Michelangelo depicted a scene at the Garden of
Eden in the
Sistine Chapel ceiling . In the
Divine Comedy , Dante
places the Garden at the top of Mt.
Purgatory . For many medieval
writers, the image of the
Garden of Eden also creates a location for
human love and sexuality , often associated with the classic and
medieval trope of the locus amoenus . One of oldest depictions of
Garden of Eden is made in
Byzantine style in
Ravenna , while the city
was still under Byzantine control. A preserved blue mosaic is part of
the mausoleum of Galla Placidia. Circular motifs represent flowers of
the garden of Eden.